Ashkenazy Drops Out Of Orchestra

The pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy has resigned as music director of the Royal Philharmonic in a dispute with the orchestra's management over its offer to a potential successor.

Ashkenazy, 57, has been conducting the orchestra for a decade and has been its music director since 1986.

He has an open-ended contract, and although in recent seasons he and the orchestra have discussed his eventual retirement, he had agreed to lead the ensemble on seven tours between 1995 and 1997.

The trouble began after a recording session last week, when Paul Findlay, the orchestra's manager, told Ashkenazy that the orchestra had made an offer to Daniele Gatti, 33, an Italian conductor who was recently appointed principal guest conductor of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Ashkenazy, who had expected to be consulted on the orchestra's choice of a successor, left London to conduct in Berlin, and from there telephoned his manager to say he would no longer work with the Royal Philharmonic.

Ashkenazy's manager, Jasper Parrott, described the conductor as "hurt and stunned."

Ashkenazy is the third conductor to announce his departure from a London orchestra in the last six months. Franz Welser-Most said he would leave the London Philharmonic at the end of his term in 1996, and Giuseppe Sinopoli said in August that he would not renew his directorship of the Philharmonia Orchestra when his contract expired next year.

Ewan Balfour, a spokesman for the Royal Philharmonic, said that the orchestra hoped Ashkenazy would continue working with it as a guest conductor.